2 missed flights, whilst sitting in the lounge – sympathy or no sympathy….?

I have never missed a flight in circumstances like yours Martyn but I have certainly come close. The last time was around five years ago when I was engrossed in a phone call in the lounge and it was only because the app of my then travel company ‘buzzed’ that I was aware the gate was closing. I had to run and they closed the door right behind me – crew not happy in any away and I was given the old skunk eye by them as I sat down.

@MartynSinclair — was there myself in T5 Lounge yesterday (22/08) morning, and no I did not miss my flight to AUH. However, I do sympathise, not that I have ever missed a flight ever, but I have have some near misses, and it could easily happen. If the airline staff are in a good mood, and most of the time I find they are (except when there are exceptional crisi/delays), they will also sympathise with us, any of us, for being ‘right prats’, and do what they can within their capacity/rules.
Anyway Martyn, well done for finding your own way out of your misdeed. I also have been called by Finnair, so perhaps they do try to go the extra mile to get you on board. Other airlines such as QR and EY come around and remind you of the current flights boarding. But I guess BA or One World in T5 would be difficult.

I must say that everything was ‘working’ fine yesterday at LHR, although my aircraft was parked on a remote stand (a B772, and has been since 16/08 – must be still short of B789’s), and the bus journey was the the usual trip to Staines and back (or so it seemed), and also particularly insufferable, as the bus was full of our cousins from across the Atlantic, whom are almost all from the School Teaching sector, returning from their annual leave and jabbering away about Al Ain and Abu Dhabi as though they have just discovered ‘gold’ in the last 2 years. I believe that in USA, their own colloquial description of said people is ‘Trailer Trash’. Fortunately was in ‘J’ yesterday, so didn’t have to listen to any further BS when finally on board.

I was in CX 1st class in HKG once and heard my name being called. I turned up to the agent who told me i wasn’t the person she had called. 20’ later, I handed her my BP to go for a shower or something and she started yelling at me that she had been calling me! It seems that my name didn’t sound the same at all with a Chinese accent (and vice-versa).
The plane was supposed to be gone already, by a few minutes but was delayed time to offload my bag, so I could catch it. It took another 10’ to reload my bag. I was mortified (we still got to NYC well ahead of schedule, fortunately).
It can happen to anyone, and airlines can’t do much. Airports are so vast that by the time they notice you’re not on board, it’s quite likely that you don’t have physical time to make it to the gate if you got lost.
From my experience and some friends’, they’re usually not too punitive and understand the situation, but you can’t bet on it. I hope they will keep it that way as, contrary to some comments here, that’s the kind of things you believe only happen to idiots until it happens to you 🙂

On a related topic, I have always thought tht airlines should do more to prevent flights being delayed due to having to offload baggage.

I would have a scanner out front of the boarding gate and require PAX who had checked in baggage to voluntarily scan their boarding card whilst waiting at the gate before boarding. Hence it would alert staff to PAX who were not at the gate and who might miss the flight and hence require bags to be offloaded.

It seems to me that the first time gate staff have an inkling that this might happen is when the last PAX have boarded and the plane is full awaiting closing up. Then they START the bag offload process which can cost 15-20 minutes.

The above would maybe take some time to bed it but PAX would get used to it and eliminate one big soutrce of delays.

Hi Martyn,

Have you thought about setting the alarm function on your mobile phone some 30-35mins prior to departure, to remind you when you need to leave the lounge?

Hope you made it BKK eventually.

Rereading my comment (yesterday 1203) it comes across as rather unsympathetic to people who accidentally miss flights, as can happen to anyone.

I really meant when people deliberately delay flights because their luggage is o/b and they think the flight won’t depart without them. When I was duty manager for an airline at a small station this was a common problem. Once we were about to close doors but had two pax missing who had already checked in. I knew who they were as I’d spoken to them at check-in so after the gate agent had made the :
“Would Mr and Mrs Selfish Tosspot who are delaying the flight please board immediately as the flight is now closing” announcement, I went to look for them and found them sauntering around the duty free.

I was walking up to them from behind, and about to ask them to board and then heard one say “Oh they won’t go without us our luggage is on board”

I called the gate and said ‘close’, on the dot, and if they come late, we deny boarding. So they came late and I was there, predictably they said they hadn’t heard the announcement, to which I told them that I was standing a few feet behind them when it was made and had heard their comment.

Offloaded bags, denied boarding. They tried to sue the airline for the cost of a new ticket and the hotel accommodation, then having lost they tried to sue me in a personal capacity, wasted a lot of time and money, and hopefully learned a lesson which may have served as an example to others.

I can’t remember ever missing a flight that was my fault but I have come close a couple of times. The nearest was at MXP when I was sitting in the BA lounge and for some reason I had in my mind that my flight was an hour later than it actually was. About 15mins beforehand, I realised my error and a mad dash through the airport just got me on board.

Two other occasions where I could have missed a flight have been with Easyjet departing on the last flight of the day out of Scotland. For some reason, the Bristol flights out of Glasgow and Edinburgh are the last flights of the day from both airports typically 2130/45 departures. On two occasions, I have arrived at the gate around 30 minutes beforehand to find that they were closing. It appeared that both times, the flights were called early and clearly they were trying to make an early departure. Since I was hand baggage on both, there was a good chance they would have closed the flights without me even though I had arrived well in time to board for the scheduled departure time. Are airlines allowed to do that?